1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to paper dispensers, and more particularly to napkin holders.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the past, napkin holders have included a multi-piece housing having openings at its longitudinal ends, two apertured doors each hingedly coupled to a respective end of the housing for closing the opening. These doors are maintained in the closed position by elaborate multi-piece structures.
These holders also included two plates disposed in the housing and having a smaller area than the cross-sectional area of the housing. The two plates are each fixedly coupled to a longitudinal end of leaf spring attached at its center to a mechanism disposed on the top wall of the housing. Two variable volume napkin compartments are each formed from one of the plates, and the doors and a portion of the housing.
These type holders suffer several problems. First, they are formed of many pieces which adds more to the raw material and labor costs necessary to construct the holder.
Second, if the leaf spring becomes damaged it is often necessary to replace both the leaf spring and the plates. If the plates can be salvaged and the leaf spring alone needs to be replaced, the replacement is often difficult, time consuming and labor intensive.
Third, each longitudinal end of the leaf spring exerts a force on the plate to which it is affixed independent of the force of the other longitudinal end. Often each of the two napkin holder compartments are overfilled, making it difficult to remove the first few napkins, which cause the napkins to tear or a larger than necessary amount to be removed. Since the force on each plate is independent, both compartments have this problem.